An Albany reporter’s steady questioning led a murder suspect to confess on camera
When a tense interview took an unexpected turn, veteran CBS6 reporter Greg Floyd relied on his calm and experience to draw out the truth
By: Kaleigh Rogers
Greg Floyd has done a lot of tense interviews over his 46-year career, but none have unfolded quite like the one that aired last month. During an interview with Floyd for Albany’s CBS6 news station, a local man confessed on camera to killing and burying both of his parents eight years prior.
Floyd didn’t hesitate to ask the man — 53-year-old Lorenz Kraus — what he knew his viewers wanted to know: Did he kill his parents, whose bodies had been discovered in the backyard of their home? Just two minutes after the cameras started rolling, after Kraus had described his aging parents’ deteriorating health, Floyd asked him: “Did you kill your parents as a mercy killing, to put them out of their misery?”
Initially, Kraus dodged the question, referring to a statement he had provided (which didn’t actually reference his parents’ deaths at all) and saying he was invoking his Fifth Amendment rights. Floyd had to conduct the interview carefully.
“I was trying to thread a needle, to walk that very fine line, because there was a chance he would just leave,” Floyd said in an interview with Poynter. “But I believed early on that he wanted to go there. And I just had to find a way to get him there.”
Floyd paused frequently, allowing Kraus to get things off his chest, but continually circled back to the issue at hand, framing the question in different ways until Kraus finally made his stunning confession.
“When your parents died, did they know what was happening to them?” Floyd asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Kraus replied.
“And they knew it was at your hand?” Floyd followed up.
“Well, yes,” Kraus said. “No one else’s.”
Lorenz Kraus speaks with CBS6 Albany anchor Greg Floyd during a tense interview in which he confessed to killing his parents eight years earlier. (Courtesy: CBS6 Albany)
Floyd continued to delicately press Kraus, whose confession came tumbling out, including details about how he strangled his parents in the summer of 2017, in what order they were killed, and how he buried their bodies afterward. Floyd said that in the moment, his reporter instincts took over and he just asked the next logical question. When the interview ended, Kraus left the station and was arrested and charged with first and second-degree murder. The stunning revelation made international headlines. But the interview wasn’t the result of a lengthy investigation or weeks of reporting; it was an impromptu event for which Floyd had just minutes to prepare.
Earlier in the week, Floyd and his colleagues had reported on a strange police investigation occurring in a quiet subdivision on the city’s west side. Police told reporters they were executing a search warrant related to a financial crimes investigation, but the next day, an excavator arrived at the home, the coroner was seen on site, and two body bags were seen being removed from the backyard. Police later confirmed they had found the bodies of two people.
The day after the bodies were found, an email arrived in the newsroom’s general inbox written by Kraus, the son of the two people found dead. Stone Grissom, the station’s news director, called the number included on the email to verify Kraus’s identity, and was stunned when Kraus admitted on the phone that he had buried his parents himself.
“I didn’t even ask him whether he buried his parents or anything like that,” Grissom said in an interview with Poynter. “I just said, ‘There were two bodies pulled out of the backyard. Do you have any comment about that?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I buried my parents in the backyard.’”
Grissom asked Kraus if he would be willing to come to the station for an interview. Kraus agreed, saying he was on his way from a library in a neighboring town, about a 20-minute drive away. Grissom suddenly had to jump into action to prepare for an interview with a potential killer who was on his way to the newsroom. First, he gave a heads-up to the station’s general manager before asking the camera operators if anyone was willing to shoot the interview. Luckily, they were all on board. Next, he decided to set up a makeshift studio in the building’s lobby as a way to limit the access Kraus would have to the newsroom.
“I didn’t know if Charles Manson was going to show up or Pee-wee Herman,” he said.
Grissom also decided to contact the police to alert them about the interview, and the police agreed to send a plainclothes officer to the station.
Finally, just minutes before Kraus arrived, Grissom grabbed Floyd and asked him to conduct the interview. Floyd didn’t hesitate.
Lorenz Kraus appears in court following his arrest in connection with the deaths of his parents, Franz and Theresia Kraus. (Courtesy: CBS6 Albany)
When Kraus arrived at the station, Grissom met him at the doors to escort him inside. Instinctually, he reached out and patted Kraus down to check for weapons, something he hadn’t planned to do, but felt prudent in the moment, he said. Throughout his career working as both a lawyer and a journalist, Grissom had never patted anyone down, but he said he wanted to do whatever he could to make sure his team was safe.
The entire 32-minute interview is available online. The tension is palpable even through the screen. A six-time Emmy-award-winning journalist, Floyd has spent much of his career reporting on government accountability, which often meant confronting elected officials about wasteful spending. While the subjects of these investigations weren’t suspected murderers, it’s clear his experience pressing people on issues they don’t want to discuss left him well prepared to confront Kraus. Stone suggested the interview could even be used as training, not only for journalists but also lawyers and law enforcement, because of how nimbly Floyd navigated the challenging discussion.
After the interview — during which Kraus detailed exactly how he allegedly killed his parents and what he did with their bodies after the fact — Floyd anchored the 5 p.m. newscast. He said it wasn’t until later that evening, when CBS6 aired the full interview for its audience, that the gravity of it really sank in. He hasn’t been able to watch it since.
Though he said he understands the interest in the interview and in Kraus’s confession, he emphasized that it should not overshadow the heart of the matter, which is that two people were killed. Franz and Theresia Kraus were beloved members of their community and the discovery of their deaths has rattled their neighbors and friends. Floyd hoped that reality wouldn’t get lost in the sensationalism of Kraus’ confession.
“It’s important that we don’t forget the victims in this story,” Floyd said. “The story is what happened in that house and how these people didn’t deserve to die.”
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Tags: Albany, Broadcast journalism, CBS6, crime reporting, Greg Floyd, interview techniques, interviewing, journalism ethics, Lorenz Kraus, newsroom safety, on-air confession, press accountability
